Bay of Sighs
Page 35

“The Phoenician Steps.”
As Sasha stared up, and up, Riley grinned. “Named so because they once thought the Phoenicians built them. Now we know they’re courtesy of the ancient Greeks. And,” she continued as they started the climb, “were once the only way to access Anacapri. Remember, when you start to huff and puff, when your quads start to whimper, the women who used to have to go up and down them, nearly a thousand steps each way, to get water, carried that filled jug on their head all the way up again.”
“Did you say a thousand?” Sasha demanded.
“Nine hundred and twenty-one, to be exact.”
“There are times I wish you didn’t know so damn much.”
“But it’s pretty.” Looking everywhere, Annika practically danced her way up. “All the flowers and the green.”
“And easier going up than coming down. Steep, uneven,” Riley qualified.
“We nearly lost two men in a rock fall the last time I climbed these steps,” Doyle remembered.
“That’s what the nets are for now.”
Up they went, past houses and fields of wildflowers and yellow broom. Up beyond chestnut trees and a tiny vineyard with grapes still young and green.
When they reached the top, Riley checked her watch. “Thirty-six minutes. Solid.”
“There won’t be stairs for the rest.” So saying Doyle continued on, and Riley rolled her eyes behind his back.
The sun beat down, relentless, and at times even the excuse for a track Doyle chose gave way to huddles of rock. Annika clambered over and around them, as hardy, it seemed, as the tiny wildflowers that pushed their way through crevices to find the sun.
Birds winged overhead, and now and then one might dart by, in absolute silence. The occasional lizard baked itself or scrambled into its own crevice as boot struck rock.
Sawyer gave a passing thought to snakes, of which he was distinctly unfond.
When Annika let out a gasp, he gave snakes a more direct thought. One hand grabbed hers, the other his gun.
“What is it?”
She pointed toward a tall stand of rocks and the scrub that clung to it. Sawyer’s hand relaxed on his gun. “A goat. A mountain goat.”
“A goat.” She stared up at the goat as the goat stared down at her. “It doesn’t look like the cheese. We ate the cheese. The goat cheese.”
“Right. They make the cheese from milk. Goat’s milk. They milk the goat.” He began to see the hole he was currently sliding into. “Ask Riley. She’s the smart one. She’ll explain it.”
“All right.” Annika scrambled up ahead, nimble as the damn mountain goat, to ask Riley.
“One way to avoid explaining teats.” Bran hauled himself up, reached back, helped haul up Sasha.
“In this case, I didn’t know where to begin.”
“I could begin by stopping for ten minutes.” Sasha swiped her forehead, pointed. “There’s some stingy shade over there. God knows when we might get another chance.”
“There’s a thought. Doyle!” After the call, Bran signaled the group ahead. “Ten-minute break, in this bit of shade. I swear the man could march from here to Naples if there was a bridge.”
They sat on the ground, on rock, angled into the shade from a shrub arching out of rock. Overhead, the goat let out a derisive call.
“Easy for him to say,” Sasha muttered, and sipped from her water bottle. “I suppose the three spots you’ve marked for the bombs aren’t enough.”
“It’s a fine start.” Bran patted her knee.
“Hell of a view.”
Sasha might have scowled at Riley, but she looked back down, and could only sigh. “Yes, it’s a hell of a view, and I’d love to paint it sometime. But I swear I thought we’d climbed as high as Mount Vesuvius by now, and it’s still a good half mile to the cave Doyle’s aiming for.”
“What cave?” Doyle demanded.
“The one you remember from when you soldiered here. The one we’re heading to.”
“I never said anything about that cave.”
She looked back into his cool, steady gaze. “But . . . No, you didn’t. You didn’t say anything. But that’s where you’re leading us.”
“Reading minds now?”
“No. No. I just—” She shook her head, rose. “Give me a minute.” She got up, walked out on the goat track, stared northwest. “I can see it. I don’t know if what I see is your memory of it or something to come. I don’t know if she’ll use it, but she’s not there, not now. Bats, spiders, dung in the cool and dry. But she’s not there.”
She re-angled herself, southwest. “Inside the great mountain she’ll make her palace. Those who climb on it, bask in its views, drink and dine around it are but ants to her. Less than nothing. She’ll be there, soon enough. But it isn’t the time, it isn’t the place to strike the final blow. Her weapon’s forged, but ours isn’t. We won’t end her here, but lives will end.”
Suddenly, she clutched her head in her hand.
“She feels me. Bran.”
He rushed to her, laid his hands on her head. “Block her out. You know what to do.”
“She claws at my mind. She’s so strong.”
“So are you, fáidh. Look at me, look here.”
Her eyes, full of pain, lifted to his.
“Stronger together. Pull from me.”